Operations Management Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A retailer faces unpredictable daily demand and variable supplier lead times. What is the main purpose of carrying safety stock?
To buffer against demand or lead-time uncertainty
To guarantee that inventory holding costs fall
To replace the need for cycle inventory
To increase the size of every replenishment order
2. A service center has an average of 24 cases in its system and completes an average of 6 cases per hour. Assuming stable flow, what average time does a case spend in the system according to Little's Law?
3 hours
18 hours
4 hours
30 hours
3. Demand during the last three months was 80, 100, and 90 units. What is the next forecast using a three-month simple moving average?
85 units
80 units
90 units
95 units
4. In its basic form, the economic order quantity model balances which two costs?
Purchase cost and shortage cost
Transportation cost and inspection cost
Labor cost and equipment depreciation
Ordering cost and inventory holding cost
5. A project has three possible paths with total durations of 9, 11, and 7 days. Assuming the paths cover all required project work, what is the project's minimum completion time?
7 days, because the shortest path finishes first
9 days, because it is the middle estimate
11 days, because the longest path is critical
27 days, because all path durations must be added
6. What does the transformation model in operations management describe?
How organizational charts are converted into job evaluations
How financial statements are converted into investment forecasts
How customer segments are converted into advertising campaigns
How inputs such as labor, materials, and information are converted into outputs
7. Small changes in customer purchases cause progressively larger order swings for retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers upstream. What is this effect called?
Economies of scale
Capacity cushioning
Demand smoothing
The bullwhip effect
8. A repair shop handles low volumes of highly varied jobs. Machines are grouped by function, such as drilling, painting, and testing, and each job follows its own route. Which layout best fits this operation?
Process layout
Product layout
Fixed-position layout
Continuous-flow layout
9. Which three factors are multiplied to calculate overall equipment effectiveness, or OEE?
Availability, performance, and quality
Cost, speed, and flexibility
Demand, capacity, and utilization
Reliability, maintainability, and inventory
10. A company begins producing each customized cabinet only after receiving a confirmed customer order. Which production strategy does this illustrate?
Make-to-stock
Make-to-order
Level production
Continuous replenishment
11. A packaging line can fill 90 bottles per minute, label 70, cap 85, and box 75. If no inventory is allowed to accumulate indefinitely, which step sets the line's maximum sustainable output?
Filling, because it begins the physical process
Capping, because it follows the slowest step
Labeling, because it has the lowest capacity
Boxing, because it is the final step
12. A manager wants to identify the small number of defect categories responsible for most customer returns. Which tool is most directly suited to this purpose?
A Gantt chart
A Pareto chart
A scatter diagram
A process flowchart
13. A clinic can handle 500 appointments per week at its effective capacity and actually completes 400. What is its capacity utilization relative to effective capacity?
20%
25%
125%
80%
14. An assembly line has a required cycle time of four minutes, but one indivisible task takes six minutes. What is the most direct response to the line-balancing problem?
Redesign or split the task so no station exceeds the cycle time
Increase the speed of every upstream station
Produce larger batches between all stations
Add more finished-goods inventory after the line
15. A manufacturer installs a keyed fixture that prevents a component from being inserted backward. Which quality approach does this best illustrate?
Inspecting finished units through acceptance sampling
Mistake-proofing the process to prevent defects
Increasing safety stock to cover defective output
Benchmarking the product against a competitor
16. A factory authorizes production only when a downstream workstation uses a container of parts and sends a replenishment signal. What system is being used?
A push system based on long-range forecasts
A pull system controlled by downstream consumption
Material requirements planning without demand signals
A fixed-position process controlled by project milestones